Joiner fitted visibly damaged materials

[RobS]

We hired a joiner to install some cladding outside our house that I had bought. After he left, I went to look at the job and instantly saw the cladding is covered in discolored patches. Not just one or two but every single board.

 

I contacted the joiner and he has basically refused to come back to look at them and just demanding full payment. He claims he did not notice the marks at the time and it is my fault as I supplied the cladding. I asked if he could come back to swap them over for a reasonable price but he is asking for the same money again and is unwilling to compromise.

 

It is very hard to understand how he did not notice the damage during the two days he was working in close proximity. He did actually spot one problem board at the start of the job with very bad marks but seemingly didn't pay attention to any others. My suspicion is he did notice the issue at some point but hoped we wouldn't spot it straight away. There was another pack of perfectly good boards there he could have used, so he could have simply used them without losing any time.

 

My question is whether it is fair to say he had a responsibility to notice the damage and not fit them?

 

Thanks in advance.

[BankFodder]

So I understand that you supplied materials for the installation and recruited somebody else to do the job.

 

The materials which you supplied turned out to be defective.

 

What was the value of the installation job ?

What would be the cost of removing the defective parts and replacing them.

 

I don't fully understand what the parts are. Please could you post up a couple of photographs. One of the item in a defective state and one of an item in good condition

 

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

Also, who supplied the defective items and how long ago?

[RobS]

Thanks for the reply.

 

The job was £500 for two days + materials, but this included some timber framing and other parts around the area that was clad. He wants £250 + about £100 of additional materials that he says will need to be replaced. Considering the time spent on the other parts this does not seem like a fair amount but I get the impression he simply can't be bothered coming back.

 

The boards were purchased about 3 months ago. The supplier was helpful and asked the manufacturer to replace them, which they did as a goodwill gesture. However, their guarantee specifically excludes fitting costs and I think the marks were so obvious they should not have been fitted in the first place. He put these pieces up early on the first day, then had another day or so working around them in close proximity so it is hard to believe he did not see the defects at some point before wasting all subsequent time and materials.

 

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[BankFodder]

I think you are in a very difficult position.

Effectively you supply the items and so it was up to you to supply items of a proper quality – fit for the purpose.
You can certainly argue the fitter should have taken notice of the quality of the items that he was installing but frankly it's not very clear how far his responsibility should have gone. It was really just following your very clear instructions.

Although many stick in your throat, I'm not sure I see a way through where you have a particularly good chance of success. If you bought a claim against your fitter I reckon that your chances would be only about 40% and they are certainly not odds that I like.

 

Presumably you have already complained to him and so he feels that he has been criticised and under threat. I can certainly understand that he might be reluctant to come back to the job in those circumstances.
I would have thought that the best thing to do would be to try and reach out to him with a compromise. I think that you should probably pay him as quickly as possible because on what I understand from you, it was not particularly his fault. He might have taken more care, I suppose, but really he was just doing what he had been told to do.

Also, I understand that there had already been a problem with the items which you had purchased so that you complained about them and they were replaced by the manufacturer. This means that you were aware of the possibility of defects and so maybe it was down to you to doublecheck the items which you eventually wanted to be installed.
 

[RobS]

Thanks again for getting back to me.

 

The supplier gave us replacement boards after this. I was not aware of any problems with them beforehand as they were in the packaging. It was the joiner who said he noticed one of the boards was discoloured at the beginning of the job but obviously did not look closely at the others. He also later told me he thought they were in bad condition when he unpacked them but didn’t tell me at the time.

 

To me, it seems like he didn't take reasonable care but I can't find any similar stories from people of what happens under these circumstances.

 

If the scenario was taken to an extreme, and a tiler spent a week installing cracked bathroom tiles that the customer had bought, can they really then demand payment for the labour when there was a visible defect? Surely the point of hiring an expert is to make sure everything looks right - whether it's materials supplied by the customer or how they fit them?

 

There was no criticism and I was sympathetic to the joiner. He wanted £250 extra + materials to fix the issue. I said that seemed a lot and asked if he could think about the most efficient way to swap the boards to keep the cost down. I also offered him 50% of the money he was asking but he refused and won't even come out to look at the marks he says he did not notice.

 

Since then I have tried several times to reach a compromise to no avail. He now says he is going to send a "debt collector" which has the tone of a veiled threat.